The three worst game ad campaigns of 2022

Let us pause at the end of this tumultuous year to pay brief homage to some folks who’ve made things just a little bit worse: the creators of terrible game ads.

These criticisms aren’t directed at the games being promoted. Far too many times I’ve seen ads for games I actually play that have no connection at all to actual gameplay. For all I know, the games themselves might actually be fun. The ads, on the other hand, definitely aren’t.

Homescapes takes the lead-off spot. If the ads are accurate – and that’s a big if – the object of this game is to pull pins out of tubes to route items to the best exit point. The samples shown offer obvious solutions, which the simulated player never seems to find.

I understand this as a marketing strategy. Convince a potential customer that they’re way smarter than participants in the ads, and they’ll feel safe wading in. And here there’s the additional aggravation of watching failure after failure in a system that should be easy to beat.

But even that isn’t enough stress for one ad, apparently. Rather than show the puzzles in the abstract, they’re framed by a story of sorts. A woman attempting to care for a child desperately needs whatever item needs to make it through the chutes. Every loss brings more suffering.

The idea must be to increase the urgency of downloading the game to play it correctly and get help where it’s needed. Instead it’s a mixture of stupidity and cruelty worthy of Elon Musk on Twitch.

Next on the list is Evony. The ads make a significant point of showcasing actual game play, so I’ll go ahead and assume that the game itself is as terrible as the ads. Once again we’ve got deliberately obtuse failures. But it’s also crystal clear that non-stupid strategies will inevitably require the player to inflict painful death on animals. I’ll pass.

And then there’s Royal Match.

The first dozen times the ads run: that king seems like he might be a friendly guy. What a shame it has to end badly for him when the sample player inevitably fails over and over again.

After losing untold hours of my life sitting through ads with no end time indicated and an instant trip to the app store for touching the screen anywhere other than right on the tiny X in the corner of the screen: Die, bastard! Get poisoned! Get eaten! Freeze! Burn! Drown! Die! Die! Die!

There, I feel a little better now.

You deserve a break today

As I finished placing my order at my favorite Chinese carry-out spot, the Nicktoons show playing on the dining area television went to commercial. I got my food and left before the show came back on. That’s either really fast sesame chicken or one hell of a long ad break.

Or both.

Eight media moments to watch in 2013

Let me start by confessing that my crystal ball is faulty at best. Of all the items on the 2012 list, I would have predicted few if any of them 12 months ago. Still, the following eight items deserve attention even if they don’t turn into major media moments.

The current month is likely to leave a couple of interesting points unresolved. In early December the United States backed out of talks about a new international telecommunications accord. At the outset of the consideration the terms seemed completely uncontroversial, the sorts of things that would interest only telecom nerds. But then a coalition led by Russia and China began building references to the Internet into the language. Though the accord wouldn’t have imposed an actual duty on any government to censor the net, the idea of incorporating content restrictions into a purely technical bargain rubbed the United States and several other countries the wrong way. As of this writing the deal looks dead, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. At least it’s nice to know that someone in our government understands the issues at stake.

Less comforting is the FCC’s current stance on ownership deregulation. Rumors from DC suggest that the commission is poised to further relax the rules governing how much of the country’s media markets may be dominated by a single company. The name Rupert Murdoch keeps coming up in criticism of the anticipated move, though of course Newscorp isn’t the only player that stands to benefit. So far the commission hasn’t made an official announcement, so this stands to be big starting early next year.

With the election over and politicians less immediately concerned about their popularity with voters, we need to watch closely for a brain-eating-zombie resurgence of SOPA. Recall that big media companies want this draconian crap something fierce, and folks with that kind of money generally aren’t great at taking no for an answer.

The net neutrality question will also probably continue to percolate. AT&T’s back-track on the FaceTime front feels more like a strategic retreat than a genuine surrender. I don’t know exactly where the next battle will flare up, but I nonetheless feel it coming.

A couple of media industries bear watching in the coming year. For some time now I’ve been wondering exactly when non-media corporations were going to start taking a closer look at the value of advertising. With budgets tightening and audiences migrating, I expect more and more companies are going to start asking hard question about the effectiveness of spending money on ads. I’m not predicting some sudden, momentous collapse of the entire ad industry. Still, this is an area worth keeping an eye on.

The movie industry also may be making some changes. For decades now Hollywood’s revenues have steadily increased with only a few relatively small hiccups here and there. But in 2011 the studios saw a decrease in box office receipts for the first time in years. The final numbers for 2012 aren’t in yet, but if they show continuing downward progress then we may start to see some changes.

One of the more disappointing trends to emerge during the election this year was wholesale disregard for media aimed at Hispanic audiences. Spanish-language and other Hispanic-oriented TV networks saw only a small fraction of the total money spent on campaign advertising. This was likely tied to efforts by the parties in power to prevent Hispanic people from voting (because if you can’t vote, why would anyone bother trying to talk you into voting for his candidate?). That might reflect the short-term status of this crucial demographic, but it isn’t sustainable in the long term. This segment of the population is growing too rapidly to be successfully marginalized forever. So wise media planners will monitor the growth of Hispanic-oriented media.

And finally, I’m counting the days until Google Fiber actually arrives. The company’s web site currently indicates that I can expect my fiberhood to get hooked up sometime this coming fall. Let’s hope the process stays on schedule. Because if it does, the “biggest moments” list in 2013 is likely to have at least one obvious entry.

And on that cheery note, I wish you all a happy new year.

The Eight Biggest Media Moments of 2012 – #6: Political ad files on the Internet

Once every four years we can all count on two big media moments: the Olympics and the election. On the latter front, most of the public’s attention focuses on attack ads. “They’re awful. Everyone hates them. Why do the candidates even run them? Still, what are ya gonna do?” Collective shoulder shrug.

But one of the biggest moments on the political ad front went largely unnoticed, taking place months before the non-stop onslaught got underway. In April the FCC ordered broadcasters to make their political advertising files available online.

By virtue of their use of the public airwaves, broadcasters are subject to a lengthy list of regulations that don’t apply to other media. In the realm of political advertising, broadcasters are required to accept ads from candidates and run them at the lowest rate available. Stations must keep records of all such ads and make the records available for public inspection. The new twist this year was the requirement that the records be made available via the Internet.

The National Association of Broadcasters challenged the change in court, but the suit went nowhere. Now anyone can go to the FCC’s web site and find out exactly how much each campaign is paying each TV station. Of course a lot of advertising – such as ads from pressure groups – isn’t subject to the rules. But at least now it’s possible to track at least some of the doings on the airwaves without a trek to broadcasters’ offices.

P’Nope

Pizza Hut thinks I’m going to eat this:

Actually, Pizza Hut seems to think that I’m willing to eat anything with a P and an apostrophe in front of it. What’s next, guys? P’Garbage? P’Shit? Oh, wait ...

Further down, the copy describes this thing as “heroic.” That’s either an insinuation that a P’Zolo is distant kin to a hero sandwich or just the latest lost battle in the war to assure that the word “hero” means anything at all.

Taxing time

Oh local newscasters. Oh billboards. Oh giant signs on the sides of downtown buildings. Oh national newscasters. Oh local newscasters (again). Oh underemployed people dressed as Uncle Sam or the Statue of Liberty.

Quit nagging me about my taxes. Ugh.

In a stand-up performance I watched earlier this week, Jake Johannsen pointed out how much easier it would be if the government would just take what it had coming and leave us the rest. “Once a year,” he pointed out, “they make us do a complicated math problem. And if you get it wrong, you go to prison.”

To that I’ll add that not even the insurance industry does business this way. Even those expert robbers can be trusted to give a reasonably straight answer when asked how much something is going to cost. They don’t want us to figure it out for ourselves (though if they did, I’m sure they’d punish us for getting it wrong).

I managed to get my paperwork done and in on time, which was easier at the state level where we’re practically forced to e-file than it is at the federal level where they’re still charging for the privilege. So why doesn’t the federal government save millions in processing costs by making e-filing available for free to everyone? Well, think of all the folks who wouldn’t be making money if they couldn’t charge customers for this simple service.

Now extend that to the concept of a flat tax. If the government actually took the suggestion from Johannsen (and me and thousands of other flat tax advocates) and put an end to the madness, what would happen to all the tax lawyers? And on a less “no, not the cockroaches!” note, what about the charities that depend on the tax-deductible quality of their support?

And just think of the poor people who could no longer make low wages by dressing up as beloved American icons and standing on the curb in the freezing cold and pouring rain screaming “tax time!” Billboard companies. Sign designers. And of course the local newscasters. Because if they aren’t nagging us about our taxes, they’ll have to go back to stories about some guy in Raymore who miraculously grew a potato that looks just like Harry Truman.

At least I waited until after April 15 to post this. I’d hate to add to the problem.

What’s wrong with your radio, Mr. Clelia?

Here’s a question asked in honor of All Souls’ Day: why are dead people trying to sell me things?

Asked point blank, the question sounds insane. It reminds me of Mrs. Clelia in Exorcist 3, the crazy old woman who hears dead people talking on her invisible radio. And yet more and more I notice that actors are showing up in ads despite their deaths years – even decades – earlier.

At first I was prepared not to object too much to the continued presence of Billy Mays in mini-infomercials. I admit I’m a trifle disturbed that new ones (or at least ones I’ve never seen before) are emerging and that they have far too many lines that are far too easy to make jokes about.

More disturbing, however, is the willingness of advertisers to deliberately use dead celebrities to plug their products.

This started several years ago when a dance number from an old Fred Astaire musical got re-cut to look like he was dancing with a vacuum cleaner. Steve McQueen made a similar appearance in a Ford Mustang ad, and John Wayne had a dialogue with R. Lee Ermey about soda (or maybe it was beer). If I were suffocating I still wouldn’t buy oxygen from The Duke even if it was half price, so that last one didn’t particularly bother me.

But now DirecTV, a company I actually do regular business with, is using dead people in ads. The overall concept of the campaign isn’t all that bad: scenes from movies are suddenly interrupted by one of the characters delivering a sales pitch directly to the audience. At least it doesn’t offend me when Naomi Watts takes a moment or two away from giant monkey clinging to extol the virtues of direct-from-satellite multichannel distribution systems.

However, the early days of the campaign featured a segment from Poltergeist. Craig T. Nelson as pitchman wasn’t a problem; there’s a difference between actually being dead and merely having a dead career. But Heather O’Rourke is also in the ad. She doesn’t say anything, not even her famous “They’re here” line. Still, it was creepy.

I objected at the time, but only within the confines of my own living room. Some critics were more vocal, which should have put DirecTV on notice that the dead celebrity element was at least potentially a source of bad publicity.

Lesson not learned. Recenty the company has been running another ad in the series featuring a clip from Tommy Boy. Sure, David Spade’s doing most of the talking. But Chris Farley’s in it too. This was a dumb thing for DirecTV to do. But what really floored me was that Spade would go along with it. He and Farley were by all appearances friends. Seriously, David, how badly do you need money? Maybe we could take up a collection. Or better yet, why don’t you go back to doing your talk show? It was actually entertaining. And considerably lighter on the dead folks.

The eight best Super Bowl ads

In the fine tradition of lists of eight, here’s an octet of the best ads from this year’s Super Bowl:

1. The screaming ad for Bridgestone Tires. I’m a sucker for cute animals. And hey folks, we all hate it when squirrels run out in the street in front of us, am I right? Despite the obvious “borrowing” from an insurance ad that ran a year or two earlier, this one had some charm.

2 through 7: Nothing. This had to have been the worst crop of ads ever.

I guess a few of them were bush-leagues cute. The cavemen and their wheel were sorta clever, though maybe it was just such a relief to see cavemen not selling Geico that this seemed more charming than it was. It was nice of Richard Simmons to go along with the follow-up Bridgestone ad. The FedEx pigeons were eye-catching if nothing else.

Beyond that, however, this was an uninspiring harvest. As everyday ads running during the nightly news or a sitcom rerun, they would have been fine. But I can’t describe the millions spent on Super Bowl placement as anything but a waste of money for most of them.

Hi, I’m an a-hole. And I’m a PC.

A long time ago IBM tried selling PCs using one of the world’s most beloved symbols of innocent, non-corporate fun: Charlie Chaplin’s famous Little Tramp character. Following swift on the heels of the advent of this campaign came the inevitable parodies. The one I remember the best ran in a humor magazine (National Lampoon, if memory serves). On one side of the ad was the “public icon,” the Little Tramp extolling the virtues of purchasing a personal computer from IBM. On the other side was the “in-house corporate icon,” The Great Dictator outlining IBM’s labor practices and various other misdeeds.

Thanks to my DVR and the advent of baseball’s off-season, I’m not currently watching a lot of television advertising. But Mrs. Lens and I have gotten hooked on the Hi-I’m-a-Mac-And-I’m-a-PC ads. Some of them are clever. They’re cheap enough to produce that Apple doesn’t have to keep showing the same ones over and over again (an excellent advertising strategy that more companies should seriously consider adopting). But more than anything else, as Mac users we still seem to need occasional reassurance that we’re the cool kids and the majority of computer users are dorks.

But earlier this week I saw one of these things that actually ticked me off. In this go-around, PC hired a PR flak to answer questions about problems with the Windows Vista operating system. Whatever PC said about it would be re-interpreted by the flak. Most of this was innocuous enough. But when PC admitted that the first release of Vista had some serious bugs in it, the PR woman bent this around to “Some early adopters experienced a few difficulties” or words to that effect.

Who the hell does Apple think it is picking on anyone else for releasing insect-ridden products? The iPhone debacle that prompted the company to offer discount coupons to overcharged “early adopters” should by itself have made this a point of embarrassment to the company.

But of course those of us with longer, more extensive experience with Apple know that the iPhone thing was not a fluke. I would be humiliated to admit how many times I installed the new Mac operating system before letting at least two or three revisions drift by. And if you really want to know how willing Apple is to screw its own customers, dig back into computer history and see if you can find someone who bought the Lisa. Or instead, try finding someone who will admit to buying the Lisa.

This mistake is especially damaging to the Mac’s product position. The last thing anyone at the too-cool-for-school table in the lunchroom wants to hear is that we’re all secretly the thing we hate most: witless stooges eating a big plate of corporate propaganda. Even if that’s what we really are, it’s a mistake to call our attention to it.

So dump on the suckers all you want, Apple. Just don’t throw your own customers into the sucker basket.

PS - Don't forget Buy Nothing Day this Friday!